I usually make mine from chicken bones that I saved from meals that we have eaten. I keep them in the freezer until I have enough to 1/3 fill a large pot. Then I cover with water and about 5 cm more water. I bring it to a boil kinda slow and then simmer for hours. After that I strain out the bones. Sometimes I reduce it so I have a concentrated stock. I don't put any seasoning. I can always add that later. I freeze it in chunks in my silicone muffin "tin" and have them handy for whatever. It's very cheap, easy, low labour, but time consuming.

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Try a powder from dried mushrooms and fennel.
Mushrooms with strong taste and aroma are necessary.

Or.

If there is a possibility to buy a truffle.
Put it in bank with dry rice. In which it it is stored.
For couple of weeks rice will absorb in itself aroma of a truffle. And dried up a truffle it is possible to rub on a grater and to add in cooking as spice.

Just give me what I want without a load of extra rubbish (and gluten) and salt thrown in lol

If you want to add extra stuff, use a lot of fresh ingredients like onions, carrots, garlic, shallots, parsley, bell peppers, hot peppers, etc. All of those add vitamins, nutrients, anti-oxidants and plenty of flavor to your cooking, without adding a bunch of chemicals and preservatives..

Quote:

Originally Posted by taxlady

Making your own stock is easy.

It is easy, but it's a lot of work. Yeah I know most of the work is at the front end, and then some straining at the end, and storing it. Most of the cooking time can be spent out of the kitchen since the stock cooks itself with little tending. But... Canned stock is so convenient and is inexpensive particularly stocking up on stock when it's on sale. I used to make stock out of every turkey I cooked (and I cooked lots of them) but usually I just buy stock on sale and keep it in the pantry.

When I make my own stock and use it in my recipes, I find that I have more pride in the food I've cooked, and that's a good thing. From the labor standpoint it's not worth it to me, but from the satisfaction side it is worth it. I'll continue both making it when I have leftover ingredients to use, and buying canned stock the rest of the time.

Just had my first test run and it seems to have gone down pretty well!!

Rice with Knor stock (plus all the other crap they throw in lol)
Chicken left overs from yesterday pan fried (with 1 cal type spray) with chopped up leek, onions (can only describe them as crushed) and green beans.
Threw on some paprika and peri peri seasoning.

I found the paprika and peri peri hid most of the taste of the onion which I don't like and just left a subtle hint of it behind.

Next time I'll be increasing the amount of veg in it as I just wanted to taste it first before diving in lol

EDIT: This was done in a Teflon frying pan - wok action tomorrow when I have some high heat oil!

Try shallots instead of onions for a milder but similar taste. If you don't like the shallots then maybe you should skip onions altogether. You can either dice the shallots, or what I like even better just slice them very thinly.

I don't believe you need any particularly high heat oil for the stir fry you're doing here. Although peanut oil has the reputation of being one of the highest smoking point oils I see no reason why you couldn't use olive or canola oil, or any of a number of other vegetable oils.

I really love leeks. Of course they're in the onion family too.

I had to google to figure out what it is, piri piri, a type of chili pepper. You might consider using some kind of fresh chili peppers. Be careful in your selection since some are mild while others are very hot. You might slice them very thinly on an angle, for use in this recipe. You can throw them in with your saute, or you can sprinkle over before serving.

My advice in using chili peppers instead of a ground seasoning is along the same lines as my stock suggestions. I prefer to go to the more natural, fresher ingredients, fresh spices instead of dried spices, whole dried spices instead of ground dried spices, etc. I believe the more primitive and less processed you get the better it tastes.

By the way, everybody should be very careful about following any of my advice about using chilis, because I'd think nothing of adding lots of very hot chili peppers to many recipes I cook. I like spicy food and I suspect a lot of people would find some of my spicy recipes too hot for them. Again, this is one of the advantages of cooking your own food, that you can get it just exactly as spicy as you like, no more and no less.

Try a powder from dried mushrooms and fennel.
Mushrooms with strong taste and aroma are necessary.

Or.

If there is a possibility to buy a truffle.
Put it in bank with dry rice. In which it it is stored.
For couple of weeks rice will absorb in itself aroma of a truffle. And dried up a truffle it is possible to rub on a grater and to add in cooking as spice.

Dried mushrooms can also be put in a food processor and powdered, then used in any broth.

Try shallots instead of onions for a milder but similar taste. If you don't like the shallots then maybe you should skip onions altogether. You can either dice the shallots, or what I like even better just slice them very thinly.

I don't believe you need any particularly high heat oil for the stir fry you're doing here. Although peanut oil has the reputation of being one of the highest smoking point oils I see no reason why you couldn't use olive or canola oil, or any of a number of other vegetable oils.

I really love leeks. Of course they're in the onion family too.

I had to google to figure out what it is, piri piri, a type of chili pepper. You might consider using some kind of fresh chili peppers. Be careful in your selection since some are mild while others are very hot. You might slice them very thinly on an angle, for use in this recipe. You can throw them in with your saute, or you can sprinkle over before serving.

My advice in using chili peppers instead of a ground seasoning is along the same lines as my stock suggestions. I prefer to go to the more natural, fresher ingredients, fresh spices instead of dried spices, whole dried spices instead of ground dried spices, etc. I believe the more primitive and less processed you get the better it tastes.

By the way, everybody should be very careful about following any of my advice about using chilis, because I'd think nothing of adding lots of very hot chili peppers to many recipes I cook. I like spicy food and I suspect a lot of people would find some of my spicy recipes too hot for them. Again, this is one of the advantages of cooking your own food, that you can get it just exactly as spicy as you like, no more and no less.

I like hot food! So I'm all good :)

I really don't like onions BUT I don't like a lot of veg so this is a cheeky way of adding them in without actually eating them if you know what I mean?!

Also the other half really likes them so I'm keeping the people happy whilst upping the veg count for me! Can't lose!